Asustek, Taipei City to offer cloud services to residents

By Helen Ku / Staff reporter

Models display various devices yesterday at a press event in Taipei to demonsrate different ways to access cloud-based services jointly developed by Asustek Computer Inc and the Taipei City Government that are to be launched in June.

Photo: Chen I-chuan, Taipei Times

Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s fifth-largest PC brand, yesterday said it would partner with the Taipei City Government to provide cloud computing technology-based services to people in Taipei.

The company said it would offer five cloud-based services — personal data storage, corporate data storage, digital education, healthcare and public access to city information — starting in June.

Asustek said the cloud-based services would operate on its platform, which already serves more than 10 million users worldwide each day.

The company added that about 5 million employees from 30 enterprises around the world had adopted its “corporate cloud” service to manage their businesses.

The project would let Taipei residents enjoy 5GB of free digital storage space, while enterprises, schools, hospitals and city government offices would be entitled to 10GB of space and data access through the platform, Taipei City Government officials said.

Residents would be able to use Asustek’s cloud-based services until the end of the year, the officials said. After the trial period, the city government plans to hold an auction for private development of the platform, they added.

Residents’ data stored on Asustek’s platform is then to be transferred to the winning bidder, but they would still be able to access the services for free, the officials added.

Peter Wu (吳漢章), chief executive officer of Asustek’s cloud-computing services division, said that the company planned to invest more than NT$100 million (US$3.35 million) in the platform to develop its security and infrastructure.

The city government said it anticipated more than 1 million Taipei residents would apply to use the services and forecast more than 20,000 Taipei-based businesses, about 10 percent of the total number of enterprises based in Taipei, to join the platform by the end of the year.